Various lubricants have been employed in photographic film and papers products, especially in the outermost layer or layers of the element.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,529,891, droplets of lubricant having a size relationship with respect to the thickness of the layer of a photographic element in which the droplets reside are disclosed. It is desired that the lubricating droplets have a narrow particle size distribution.
Because of the nature of liquid lubricant droplets, it is extremely difficult to obtain droplets that are stable over any length of time. Thus, it is readily apparent that it is difficult to provide uniformly sized, stable lubricant droplets. U.S. Pat. No. 5,541,048 describes a process for making stable lubricant droplets capable of being applied from a coating composition to form layers of uniformly sized lubricant droplets in a binder and photographic elements having at least one layer containing uniformly sized and dispersed lubricant droplets. Combining these lubricant droplets with a hydrophilic binder such as gelatin is not straightforward and requires a surfactant to prevent destabilization or aggregation of the lubricant droplets. Additionally, in making the lubricant droplets, a solvent, either volatile or permanent is necessary in order to increase the surface energy of the droplet and facilitate the partitioning of the particulate suspension stabilizing agent onto the surface of the lubricant droplets from the water medium.
It is toward the objective of overcoming the aforesaid problems and limitation of the prior art that the present invention is directed.